As I transition back into more active blogging, I thought it might be useful to do a (very) quick overview of my picks from the recent Future MAC and MAC Mineralize collections. Both are focused on skin-enhancing textures. I focused my dollars on the powder products.

Otherearthly is the most striking highlighter. Although intimidating, it’s actually sort of fun to use and creates a high-shine metallic light peach-rose gold finish. The look is pure MAC–bold, not a subtle sheen. There’s definitely a surprise factor with Otherearthly–depending on where you place your brush, you’ll get a different look. The two outer shades are rather smooth. The silver (not an overspray! It’s really silver!) doesn’t have a super-smooth texture. But you really can’t expect that (it’s a chunk of silver, hey!). And once the shades are blended together, the look is pretty spectacular. The swatches compare Otherearthly’s individual shades, mixed and swatch of Nuanced Mineralized Skinfinish (part of the Mineralized collection).

The new MAC Mineralized collection gives us five new options in a “pinwheel” format. These were a pure joy to work with–they’re creamy and with the four quarters, there’s a surprise factor that’s just absolutely fun. I chose three:

Faintly Fabulous has a yellow color-correcting shade that can be used to brighten the undereye area. This gives a glowing light highlighter effect when all of the shades are mixed together that leans toward pinky-gold. I was surprised that the final mixed version wasn’t very yellow at all.

Nuanced is the most metallic and shimmery of these three. It gives a lovely gold-pink shade that’s just gorgeous. On my NC15 skintone, it can be used as a subtle high-shimmer blush.

Perfectly Lit is my favorite mistake. Technically, it’s too deep for my skintone and could never, ever be a highlight on me. It’s a gingery-shimmer orb of goodness that I have to apply very lightly as a high-shimmer blush. If you look good in gingery deep shades, you might love this one.

All three had an excellent smooth formula. These deserve a lot of love if you are a mineralized skin finish fan.

MAC Warm Rose Mineralized Skinfinish is perhaps the most puzzling product of the lot. It reminded me of Chanel’s Poudre Douce in Rosee that was discontinued in the U.S. some years ago. The Chanel allover face powder looks slightly cool pink when applied to my NC15/Cameo/Ivoire skintone. When certain kinds of light hit it, the Chanel powder gives a slight, soft pearly effect that’s just gorgeous. MAC Warm Rose has a similar quality, but it is not quite as pronounced. Indeed, the effect is so subtle that depending on the color/tone/texture of your skin, and the lighting, you might not see the effect at all. In that case, Warm Rose amounts to the most subtle highlighter on the face of the planet (truly, it’s more subtle than the Hourglass Ambient Light Powders). There will be a narrow class of people who might love Warm Rose. For others, it’s going to be best to skip. Warm, deep skin tones might find it looking ashy, and others may find it completely invisible.

There are two limited edition blushes with Future MAC–the soft pink/peach Ray Beam and the light nude Cosmic Force. The texture of both is satin-matte, and the formula is a creamy powder. These are both well done, but probably not must-haves.

Ray Beam is pretty, and I’ll get a lot of use out of it. It reminds me a little of Chanel Espeigel, but without the soft Chanel glow. MAC’s Ray Beam is softly pigmented, and it compliments Othereartly and Nuanced nicely. In other words, it fits in nicely with the overall collection.

Cosmic Ray, a soft nude, was a miss for me. Although for some it would be a good contour shade, it didn’t have the complexity or depth that I was hoping for. My mistake was comparing it to Chanel Mocha, which has a deep mauve base note that looks amazing with Chanel Rosee (they always discontinue the nice ones). I’m including swatches so you can make up your own mind.

Whew! So overall, I’d look at Otherearthly because that’s the most unusual star product out of this collection. I wish they’d made pink and alternative nude versions of it. MAC Warm Rose is going to be a love-it or hate-it product (or a big “nothing-burger with nothing on the side” for some). The Mineralized “pinwheels” are worth your time–choose according to your skin tone. The blushes are well-formulated, the question is going to be whether these are colors that you are looking for.

I’ve heard good things about the lip products in this collection, but I had to draw the line somewhere. With the Sephora sale going on, and Tom Ford Bicoastal in stock, tough choices have to be made.

My choice from MAC’s recent In the Groovecollection was the Mineralized Skin Finish in By Candlelight ($28).

I though this was the prettiest piece in this rather enormous release. Sadly, it’s limited edition but hopefully you will be able to find this for a few more days. As this story at The Beauty Look Book explains, Stereo Rose sold out quickly. Many makeup lovers were very upset, there were apparently backorders, cancelled orders and general frustration. The product was out of stock less than two hours after it went online at Mac’s online site. Lucky for me, I found Stereo Rose too orange and shimmery for my pale skintone back when I bought it in 2005. I no longer even know where it went; I may have given it to Liz but even she isn’t sure where it could be. In any event, if you are in our skintone range, I personally do not believe that you missed out if you were not able to get Stereo Rose.

On to happier things! By Candlelight is beautiful. It was released about six months ago with the Warm and Cozy collection, but I missed it then. This time, I tried it in my local MAC store and loved the effect. By Candlelight is a luminous, pink-peach baked powder that gives my NC15 skin a glow.

Swatches of the rosy-peachy-pearliness, which I find to be really lovely…

Estee Lauder Pure Color Luminous Powder is the least obvious–it seems to become part of the skin leaving only light-reflection behind.

The Chanel adds a gold color to the skin, but doesn’t seem to emphasize the tiny lines in my skin

Physician’s Formula had the most color (center), and seems to emphasize lines I didn’t even realize I had.

Same swatches, different angle:

MAC’s By Candlelight is sometimes compared to Dior’s Amber Diamond. As you can see, By Candlelight has more pink tones:

I’m pleased with By Candlelight, although it will be very difficult me to give up Estee Lauder’s Pure Color Luminous Powder as my #1 favorite. Nonetheless, I’ll get plenty of use out of MAC’s By Candlelight.

As an aside, I passed on the rest of the In the Groove Collection. I found the other mineralized skin finishes seemed too shimmery/metallic for my personal preferences. The eyeshadows and lip products seemed very nice, but I’m more interested in exploring other lines products currently.